Graveyard of Knights (3)
Hidden route.
Standing before the doors of the keep where the boss waited, I turned that word over in my mind again and again.
▷ Offer the boss, the Blind Knight, his name.
I knew about the Blind Knight.
A boss monster split into two distinct phases. The normal phase, which began the moment you made contact — and then, once you'd whittled down its health a little, the berserk phase. Naturally, the berserk phase was the nastier of the two. Its attack power soared into the stratosphere, and its patterns turned savage and erratic. Even so, taken as a whole, it was nothing more than your standard C-rank gate boss. So long as you didn't get careless, it was a monster I could take down without much trouble at my current level.
"Hmm…"
Except a variable had cropped up here. The hidden route itself posed no difficulty. All I had to do was tell the boss the name the necromancer had left behind before dying. But after that? Was the boss really going to stay the same? Of course not. One way or another, the fight was highly likely to take on a form completely different from the Blind Knight I knew. And if that happened, I'd lose the full use of my greatest weapon — information.
"So it's a choice between two."
Abandon the reward and fight a stable, predictable boss battle — or throw away my information advantage and claim the hidden prize. There was nothing to think about.
With a grinding roar, the doors swung open.
Inside the keep, darkness lay thick and settled. The moment I set foot across the threshold, the torches lining the walls flared to life all at once, bathing the interior in firelight. Directly ahead stood a throne of deep ink-black, and seated upon it, still as the dead, was a knight. He was massive from the very start, as if declaring himself the boss before a single word was spoken. Standing, he would clear three meters with ease. Across the midnight-blue armor wrapped around his entire body, splatters of blood stood out vividly.
I walked slowly across the center of the hall. When the distance had closed considerably, the knight's head moved.
- …Who are you?
Based on what I'd gathered after capturing the necromancer, it seemed that entering the hidden route had granted me the ability to understand what the monsters were saying.
- I asked… who are you?
I said nothing. The reason was simple. What was I supposed to say? If I came right out with 'I'm a hunter here to kill you. Hand over the reward. And a few other things while I'm at it,' he'd probably go berserk from the very first second.
Hmm. After a short but deep deliberation, I selected an appropriate answer.
"I've come to deliver Wengrum's final words."
- Wengrum…? That one still lived?
A trace of emotion seeped into the Blind Knight's voice — a tangled mess of sorrow and something harder to name.
"He's dead."
- …I see.
The voice reverted to dry indifference, and I continued.
"The Knight King, Grempel."
- ……
"That's your name."
The name the necromancer had left behind for the Blind Knight. Without further ado, I delivered it straight. Contrary to my expectation that something would react immediately, however —
- ……
the Blind Knight sat in silence for a long while. Then, all at once—
- Kheheheheheheh!
he started laughing like a madman.
- What a comical tale.
"…What is?"
- Long ago, the one who dragged me into ruin said much the same thing.
The knight rose from his throne. Reaching out with long, thick fingers, he seized the greatsword standing beside him and hauled it up with brutal ease.
- That my name was Grempel. That I would inherit the name of that great ancestor. That such power would be granted unto me. KHAHAHAHA!
The knight bellowed with heavy laughter. I simply narrowed my eyes in silence. So who was this guy, exactly? Apparently someone had offered the knight a name before I ever arrived.
- I was swept up in that honeyed serpent's tongue and drunk on madness, and this is where it led. All that remains is ash and the stench of rotting corpses.
Then, suddenly, a crimson light glittered on his finger. From the familiar ring, a dark-red aura surged up like flames.
- I lost everything.
Gripping the greatsword, the knight descended the steps one at a time.
- My kingdom. One step. - The loyal vassals who served me. One step. - My knights. One step. - And so I have come to be what I am.
A heavy, clattering crash rang out, striking the walls of the keep and echoing through the hall.
- Kheheh… Yes. That name — I shall accept it! But I am not the 'Knight King' Grempel.
As the deep voice settled into a low murmur, a sinister killing intent pricked at my skin.
- I am…
My long-honed instinct was screaming an alarm. Battle was about to begin.
- The Fallen King, Grempel.
A black storm whirled up around the knight.
▷ Slay the boss, The Fallen King, Grempel.
"…Doesn't look easy."
Forcing the corners of my mouth upward, I took up my spear.
"Ugh, I'm dying…"
Seong Ju-ah groaned, her chestnut hair hanging loose around her face. Dazzling track record, razor-sharp instincts, a natural eye for talent — she'd built her life as the ideal career woman, hearing the word elite tossed her way from every direction. And yet.
"Su-hyeok… I'm quitting…"
"That would be the two-hundred-and-thirtieth time you've said exactly that, ma'am."
"This time it's real. I'm really, truly quitting."
"Of course you are."
"…Excuse me?"
Right now, she genuinely, sincerely wanted to quit. Dark circles sagging beneath her eyes, a dress shirt stained with days of wear. She'd drunk so much coffee her mouth felt like the bottom of an ashtray.
"So tired… let me go home…"
The reason Seong Ju-ah couldn't even go home and was chained to the middle of Daegu was, in its entirety, that young master who'd entered the gate. Thanks to Lee Tae-hyun's little 'B-rank gate' incident, the Hunter Bureau had been turned completely upside down. It was an unprecedented crisis that had the higher-ups on the verge of stripping off their clothes in panic, and the shockwave had crashed straight into Seong Ju-ah's previously peaceful life. Business was a relentless bombardment falling day after day; getting mobilized to clean up the mess was a given, and being hounded by reporters simply for belonging to the Bureau had become routine — even though Lee Tae-hyun wasn't even her assigned hunter.
When was the last time she'd even been home? Come to think of it, did I ever have a home to begin with…
"That son of a bitch, Lee Tae-hyun…!"
At some point, it had become a mantra. Every ounce of misery Seong Ju-ah was suffering traced back to that bastard. The murderous cleanup workload, the staring contest she was locked in with the reporters right this very moment — all of it.
"Senior. But… do you really think he can come out in five hours?"
Kim Su-hyeok, who'd been reviewing documents beside her, asked the question. That was exactly why they were camped out in front of the Daegu gate with nowhere else to go: Lee Tae-hyun's declaration of a five-hour clear. Everyone had naturally dismissed it as nonsense, but the Bureau couldn't exactly brush it off lightly either. An institution was an institution, after all.
"He'll come out, all right."
"R… really?"
"Yeah. Crawling out with his tail between his legs."
Seong Ju-ah snorted. "An F-rank hunter clearing a C-rank gate alone? Who does he think he is, some hero of a war-torn age?"
She had finished her analysis of Lee Tae-hyun a long time ago.
"That one's a lost cause."
Growth was slammed shut tight. On top of that, his character was rotten and he didn't put in an ounce of effort. A man born with a great deal in his hands, yet lacking the strength or the will to hold onto any of it — the type to let everything slip through his fingers and dribble away.
"If you're saying that, senior… then he really is beyond hopeless."
"Well… there was a teensy bit of emotion mixed in."
"…A teensy bit?"
"…Okay, a lot."
Kim Su-hyeok's face had gone the color of dirt from days of consecutive overtime. The two of them heaved a heavy sigh in unison.
"Would be nice if he'd just give up like a sensible coward and come out already."
The moment those words left her mouth—
WEE-OONG! WEE-OONG! WEE-OONG!
The device at their feet began shrieking a continuous warning. Seong Ju-ah's drowsy, half-lidded eyes snapped sharp in an instant.
"Wh… what the—!"
The color drained from Kim Su-hyeok's face as he checked the graph rising on the device's screen.
"What? What is it?"
"S… Senior, you need to see this… now…"
A machine that analyzed mana wavelengths to determine a gate's classification. The wavelength graph, which had been tracing a nice, uneventful straight line, had spiked violently upward at some point.
"Wh… what is that?!"
Seong Ju-ah couldn't hide her alarm either. As the two Bureau employees radiated a distinctly abnormal energy, the hyena-like reporters began inching closer.
"What's going on? Did something happen?"
"Is something wrong over there?"
"Just tell us! What's the situation right now?"
Answering them even once would be a catastrophe. Seong Ju-ah bit down on her lip, hard, instead of replying.
What on earth is happening inside that gate…?!
Grempel's greatsword slammed down onto the spot where I'd been standing. I sprang out of the way, barely slipping past the blow, and the ground shuddered as debris scattered in every direction.
- Quick to run, aren't you!
The greatsword, wreathed in blood-red energy, came swinging wildly.
"Tch!"
Who wield a greatsword like a dagger? We exchanged dozens of strikes and counters, but I was the only one tiring. I can't block them all! Blades were lunging at me from every direction I could see. Blocking each one individually was out of the question.
Draw in a deep breath and release all the tension from my body. If I couldn't block, then I'd simply let them flow past.
Dance of Ten Thousand Streams Beneath the Moon
The new-style form blurred like silk, gently deflecting the frenzied sword strikes away from my body. It was an imperfect spear dance. I escaped the wounds that would have carved off my limbs, but there was nothing to be done about the assortment of cuts and bruises left clinging to my skin.
- You possess a rather ingenious trick.
Grempel sneered and swung his greatsword in a colossal arc. The dark-red energy detonated, carving up the entire area.
KWA-BOOOOM—!
The keep collapsed into ruin with pathetic ease, and a thick cloud of dust billowed up.
"Hah… hah… I really almost died there."
Thankfully, the explosion hadn't reduced me to ash along with everything else. My sharpened danger sense had carried me just beyond the blast radius in time.
"Trickier than I expected."
The red aura coiling around Grempel was unmistakably the berserk effect of the Bloodstained Ring of Madness. Under normal circumstances, he should have lost his mind the instant the berserk state activated. Is this what changed when he accepted the name? He didn't rain his greatsword down like a deranged lunatic, nor did he burn through his strength recklessly until exhaustion exposed his openings. He was wielding that raw, frenzied power as though it were his own hands and feet. That alone raised the difficulty of this hunt by an enormous margin.
- To dodge even that. You have rather serviceable eyes.
"I get that a lot."
Beyond the thick dust still hanging in the air, Grempel's burning eyes glowed. Pah! In an instant, they were gone. I'd lost track of Grempel's position — while my own figure stood exposed in plain sight. He could ambush me from anywhere, at any moment, in any manner. A bead of cold sweat traced down my forehead.
"No time to be picky about methods."
A smile curved the corner of my mouth. Yes — this kind of situation suited me. Not a presence enthroned above, but one who rises to challenge. The habits of a life lived that way were engraved into my very bones.
Closing my eyes, I called up the senses of my past life. The days of wandering the ruined Korean peninsula — the era after the Iron Blood Monarch's advance had swept everything before it, when death rolled across every inch of land the eye could reach. In that place, I had taught myself a surprising variety of things. I pored over martial manuals that had escaped the flames and, with talent I didn't have, clawed my way toward mastery anyway.
Even a mediocrity, if he thrashes long enough, reaches somewhere — however modest. Spread the mana in a circle. Then dissolve my senses into it. A stream of pure white mana spread outward from my center, little by little claiming the space around me. At last, a white domain had formed, enclosing me entirely.
⟨ Domain Art — Eve of Battle ⟩
It severed every sense except what lay within the domain. In exchange—
FWHOOOOOONG!
it poured the entirety of my focus onto anything that intruded upon it. There. Upper right. I felt it — a crushing blow tearing through the domain, descending toward me.
Parry!
My spear lashed out and met the greatsword. CLANG!! The impact of knocking the blade aside sent a stinging pain shooting through my hand.
- …Kuhk!
Caught off guard by the counter, Grempel vomited up a mouthful of black blood. Ignoring the screaming in my hand, I gritted my teeth and leveled the spear. One more strike remained.
Thrust!
The two movements flowed together like water — parry-and-thrust. Once you've knocked it aside, you pierce. That is the way of the spear.
KWA-DEUK!
The spearhead shot forward and skewered Grempel through the shoulder.
- INSOOOLENT WRETCH!
Grempel corrected his flung-back greatsword and brought it down in one motion. If that thing landed squarely, my body would be pulped on the spot. …But.
"My attack's not finished yet, you know?"
Through the hand gripping my spear, I channeled mana into the blade.
Reinforcement (D)
Spear of Consecrated Radiance (B) is being reinforced!
Light erupted from the spear in a blinding cascade. The sensation traveling up the spearhead went suddenly soft. The amplified holy power was grinding Grempel's defense down at an exponential rate.
"Ngh—!"
I gripped the shaft tight in both hands.
"HRAAAAAAH!"
I had to carve through him, right here. From the left shoulder all the way down to the right hip. Cut him down in a single stroke.
KRRRRCH—!
The spear blade drove through the Fallen King's torso, grinding forward as it went.